Collector Spotlight: Dominik Bokr

1. How many years have you been collecting and what started your passion?

My passion wast started when I was a small kid, probably around 5 years old. My grandmother lived in a mineralogically rich area, and she was cutting gems full time. So she took me to local shows and places where we could collect. Then, for many years, my “collection” stayed in a box. At the beginning of the last year, I returned from erasmus in slovenia and after being used to love with very few things (when you travel you can not move tons of stuff around) I started cleaning my room and throwing stuff away. You guessed it, I found my old “collection” and started selling the minerals, because why would I do with rocks in my room. I joined some groups, became a friend with some people and in a few weeks my passion was sparked again and I started collecting again, so a short answer to this question would be something around a year. Do I regret selling part of my childhood? Well no, because wanting to sell it got me here, and I am thankful for that.

2. What's the focus of your collection and has that changed through time? Why?

Main focus of my collections is to collect minerals from localities I visited or at least from countries I traveled. I like to know the context of the mineral, where it came from, how people live there and how nature there looks like. Second focus is the size, on display I have only small miniatures, and in the future I’d like to go even smaller, ideally w35 x l35 x h65mm. I just love to look at a display full of one size minerals. Then I have smaller or larger minerals that are unique or have sentimental value, for example self collected.
3. What do you like to do outside of mineral collecting? (hobbies, job, music taste, etc).

Outside of mineral collecting I’m an arts and architecture student, photographer and traveler. I also love reading, hiking, skiing, and learning new things.

4. What's your favorite species? Why?

Favorite species is a very tough question, but I want to try to answer it. Fluorite and quartz are the ones I’m thinking about, and my preference changes every month probably. Right now I’d pick quartz, but also for fluorite the reasons are a bit similar. It just fascinates me how such a simple mineral with a simple formula can form so many habits and types of crystalization. Inclusions and diferent conditions they grew in can make quartz so interesting and make it look a thousand different ways. So, my favorite piece might be a combo of these two, either a french smoky with pink fluorite or panasqueira’s clear quartz with a purple fluorite.

5. Are you a stay-at-home collector or do you collect on the field too?

I buy most of my specimens (only a few of them in my collection are self collected), but I try to travel every year at least once to collect and buy minerals. Last summer I was in Greece, and next year I’d like to take a few trips to Swiss Alps and US, I already started planning these but we will see how the situation with corona will turn up.

6. What specific aspect of the hobby would you like to learn more about?

I think that I know a something about compositions, aesthetics etc. (we learn that in school + I work with that in photography), but I struggle with the scientific aspect of this hobby. So, that is my answer, I’d like to get a few books on how minerals were formed, what causes all the colors, shapes and textures and different scientific aspects.

7. Do you get any inspiration from minerals? How?

For me, minerals are like sculptures, just not man made. And I think about architecture like about making sculptures, just with added functions. This means that in minerals I look for forms and compositions, that I can get inspiration for making my own designs in architecture. The same goes with photography, but instead of making the space, you capture it in frames.